


Santa Baby, Stay the Hell Away From Me

by Mothfinder_General



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 22:04:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mothfinder_General/pseuds/Mothfinder_General
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone's been listening to too much Eartha KItt, haven't they, Lysandre</p>
            </blockquote>





	Santa Baby, Stay the Hell Away From Me

Lysandre walks into Professor Sycamore's office to find him sitting in a cardboard box with a glass of flat champagne in his hand and a bit of holly stuck on a Santa hat on his head. The box has 'Merry Christmas and Happy 2014!' written on it. Professor Sycamore is frozen in a bizarre position, toasting an unseen observer and grinning.

Lysandre forms the 'what' of 'what the fuck' when a flash goes off and only then does he notice the camera on a tripod.

"Ah, mon ami!" says Professor Sycamore, trying to get out of the cardboard box and failing dismally, champagne slopping everywhere. "You've caught me taking the photo for my round robin this year."

Lysandre gets all the way to 'fuck' this time. "What the fuck, Professor?"

Professor Sycamore gives up on getting out of the box and settles back, spreading his long legs in front of him. "My round robin! I send a little newsletter out to all of my friends and family and distant relatives and archenemies and giant space-dwelling carnivorous galaxy spiders and ex-lovers and ex-students and any literate Pokémon I know and,” he takes a deep breath, “I always put a humorous seasonal picture at the top!”

Lysandre takes in the cardboard box. He takes in the Santa hat, which is moulting fur from its band, and he takes in the holly, which looks as if it has been kissed into submission already. “Humorous,” he repeats. “Seasonal.”

“Yes!”

Lysandre silently approaches the box and stands over the Professor, who looks winsomely up at him from under the holly.

“This is seasonal,” says Lysandre flatly, and Professor Sycamore suddenly looks a bit worried.

“Oh, do you think I ought to be wearing more glitter? Some tinsel as a feather boa, maybe?”

Lysandre immediately has a mental image of Professor Sycamore performing Christmas cabaret in a tinsel feather boa and stockings patterned with fir trees. He cannot banish this image from his mind; worse, Professor Sycamore is singing ‘Santa Baby’ in an alluring falsetto. He takes the champagne from Professor Sycamore and downs it in one. It is flat and it tastes like feet but at least it’s alcoholic.

“Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends!” says Professor cheerfully.

“You know,” says Lysandre, “that joke doesn’t translate all that well into Kalosian.”

**

_LyssyBaby,_

_Slip on a collar under the tree, for me.  
I’ve been an awful good boy. _

_Lyssy baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight._

_Lyssy baby, or a pair fluffy handcuffs instead,_  
In red.  
I'll keep you up all night, dear,  
Lyssy baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight.

_Think of all the puns I’ve quipped!_  
Think of all the fellas that I haven't shipped!  
Next year I could be just as good,  
If you'll check off my Christmas list – 

Lysandre wakes up with a startled ‘argh’ and looks at the clock. It is 6am. It is Christmas Eve. He has been dreaming about a pouting Professor wrapped in tinsel, singing appalling rehashed song lyrics and he has just remembered that he hates the taste of Christmas pudding. And sprouts. And parsnips. And fun.

 

“When will this holiday nightmare be over,” he mumbles, and pulls the covers over his head.

 

**

 

The round robin letter arrives on Christmas morning at 12.07am, by special Pokémon delivery. Lysandre has spent the morning pretending that he has a lot of things to do near his front door, like adjusting the Christmas garland and dusting off the fairy lights, and sucking on a peppermint cane with a faraway expression until he realises he’s doing weird things with his tongue and he thinks _oh my god stop it_.

 

He picks up the folded newsletter with careful hands and places it on the coffee table.

 

“I have to cook,” he says aloud. (Lysandre is spending Christmas Day alone. Every attempt to invite him anywhere has been met with an entirely unironic ‘bah humbug’ and a non-sequitur about not asking for more coal, which surprises even Lysandre every time it comes out of his mouth because it makes no damn sense – his labs and his café have central heating.)

 

“I don’t have time to look at a piece of A4 vanity publishing,” he says.

 

“I’m his friend, I know all the things that have happened to him in the past year,” he says.

 

“They all straddled the fine line between genius and moronic stupidity,” he says.

 

“It was a stupid picture anyway,” he says.

 

“He had a bit of holly on his hat,” he says.

 

That was quite cute, he thinks, and he picks up the letter to check whether or not the picture is still cute.

 

The picture is still cute. Lysandre controls himself magnificently and does not run up the stairs two at a time to throw himself on his bed and giggle with the round robin letter clutched to his chest.

 

There is a note scrawled on the bottom of the newsletter, in Professor Sycamore’s horrible chickenscratch handwriting. It reads, _Come over for Christmas dinner. I’m having a little party. We have lots of board games and we might sing some  karaoke. I do a good impression of Eartha Kitt, it is not to be missed!_

Bah humbug, thinks Lysandre. But he’s smiling anyway.

 

He goes into the kitchen to turn off the oven, where his nut roast is cooking, and then he pulls himself into the big red duffle coat that he thinks is beyond hideous but he knows Professor Sycamore loves to pieces (and often tries to steal, even though it is far too big for him). He gets a bottle of champagne – decent champagne – from the fridge and he wedges it into one of the duffle coat’s deep pockets. Then he opens the front door and sets off into the snow, towards the Professor’s house, absentmindedly whistling the tune for ‘Santa Baby’.


End file.
